Democrat Scott Martinez, the attorney who played an enormous role in his party’s victories in redrawing congressional and legislative boundaries, is leaving private practice to work for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

Martinez, who is with Holland & Hart, will become the deputy city attorney under Doug Friednash. He starts Jan. 9.

Republicans no doubt are cheering Martinez’s departure. He helped draw the boundaries for the new congressional districts and testified about them in Denver District Court. He was a key behind-the-scene’s player in the battle to draw new legislative boundaries.

No word on the new salary but Martinez, 33, admitted he’s taking a pretty hefty pay cut.

Even the Democrats were stunned. It turns out the congressman has a poster of the pesky inspect in his office. “Dendroctonus” means “tree-killer, and “ponderosae” refers to “pine tree.” Westfall quickly moved to another subject.

The Longmont Democrat and state Senate president announced on July 4 he was challenging U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, in the 4th district. But then a Democratic map and Latino map moved him out of the 4th and into the 2nd CD.

“It appears no one wants him to go to Congress,” state Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, said today.

But Pueblo County District Attorney Bill Thiebaut, in one of his two maps, put Longmont and Shaffer into the 4th District today. That map, according to a Republican, is the “least batshit map a Democrat has submitted so far.”

In both of Thiebaut’s maps, Pueblo is kept whole and is in the same district as the Western Slope. (His maps appear at the end of this blog.)

Colorado has seven congressional seats. Two of them are in the metro area and are difficult to see on this map.

It started off nice enough, but, perhaps not surprisingly, ended nasty.

That was the way the debate went today on a bill that would change the factors courts could consider when weighing whether congressional redistricting plans are fair.

Republicans first said House Bill 1408, sponsored by House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, had been improved from its original version.

Weissmann’s original bill would have eliminated a Republican-backed law that directed which factors a court should consider – and the order in which they should be considered – when looking at whether congressional redistricting plans are legal.

What was supposed to be open warfare over a Democratic proposal to alter congressional redistricting law has simmered down some after the sponsor agreed to softer language.

The legislation, House Bill 1408, passed the House State Affairs Committee on Tuesday on a 7-3 vote, with one Republican, Rep. Carole Murray, R-Castle Rock, supporting it.

The bill eliminates a law Republicans passed in 2003 dictating factors that a court must consider – and the order in which the factors must be considered – if the legislature fails to create a congressional redistricting plan. Those factors, and their order, are:

– Districts must have equal populations;
– Redistricting plans must follow federal voting rights law;
– Plans should, wherever possible, preserve cities and counties and not divide them;
– Plans also should try to keep “communities of interest,” which can be geographic, ethnic or demographic groups, whole; and
– Districts should be compact.

The bill also eliminates language in current law that says courts cannot consider “non-neutral” factors that include “political party registration, political party election performance and other factors that invite the court to speculate about the outcome of an election.”

Democrats say this last rule would prohibit courts from considering whether districts should be politically competitive. When the politically divided legislature failed to draw up a congressional redistricting map in 2001, the process went to state courts.

Republicans say the courts essentially approved a Democratic-friendly plan, one that made the 7th Congressional District around Denver highly competitive. Republican Bob Beauprez won the seat in two elections, and Democrat Ed Perlmutter has done the same.

Republicans called Weissmann’s bill a Democratic gerrymandering effort that was taking neutral factors out of the law. They said that state court judges, especially those on the Colorado Supreme Court, have been partisan for the benefit of Democrats.

“We would all like to depoliticize the process,” said Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs. “This is a political process not only in the legislature, but I also believe it becomes a partisan political process in the courts as well.”

Weissmann said the bill was “undoing a gerrymander” rather than creating one. But Weissmann later said he’d be willing to keep factors giving the court guidance as long as those factors were not put in any order and as long as courts could still consider factors like political competitiveness.

That seemed to mollify Republicans a little.

Weissmann amended his own bill, picking up two Republican votes on adoption of the amendment but only Murray’s on final passage.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.